Knee Pads

27 | loss of relative position

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN | LOSS OF RELATIVE POSITION

when a skater's position in relation to other skaters on the track is lost for a sustained period of time due to the actions of an opponent, such as a legal block or an illegal block.

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          Like January before it, February flew by in the blink of an eye.

          A few months ago, I would have been ecstatic as I counted down the days until graduation, my ticket out of Connecticut, but now it was one of the very last things on my mind. I needed to think about graduation because I didn't want to be on academic probation and my grades were still very much a priority of mine, but I wasn't too keen on the idea of leaving all of this behind. Not anymore, at least.

          Roller derby kept me the busiest out of all my hobbies and remaining affairs, now that we were so close to winning the championship, and Marley and Coach Fontaine had been relentless. I'd been working harder than ever before, building my endurance so I wouldn't start heaving in the middle of the track like a dying seal after completing a jam, and I thought I'd been doing the right thing up until the moment Marley pulled me aside one afternoon.

          "Can I talk to you real quick?" she asked. She usually saved the glitter for official bouts, so the glowing layer smeared across her forehead and down her neck was just sweat.

          "Am I in trouble?"

          My mind started reeling, fearing it was something about my blossoming relationship with Corinne, which still felt so foreign to me when said out loud.

          We hadn't been keeping things a secret, though neither of us were the greatest fans of extravagant public displays of affection, and she mostly wanted us to lay low around Drew at first. I'd been slightly concerned about how the rest of the team would take it ("and we care about their opinion on something that is none of their business because . . .?" Corinne had asked, sprawled out on my bed), particularly Coach (Corinne had flipped me off then), but I didn't think Marley in particular would have an issue with it. It had been ages since they broke up, even though slivers of pettiness occasionally emerged between them, but I couldn't be too certain.

          Marley rolled her eyes. "Obviously not. I'm here as the co-captain."

          "Ah." I took a deep breath in an attempt to relax, but it felt like a direct stab into my lungs. "What's up?"

          She leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner. "This is me checking up on you for the sake of the team, but also because you're my friend and I care about you. Now that the formalities are out of the way, I'm just going to dive straight in. Coach has been all up my grill these past few days because she wants you to be benched for the next bout."

          My heart sank to my stomach. "Why? I've done nothing wrong; if anything, I've been working harder than ever before."

          "Wren—"

          "If this is because I argued with her on Christmas, then she's just being unnecessarily petty and a hypocrite because I distinctly remember her telling Corinne her problem was that she took things too personally—"

          "Wren, that's not—"

          "If it's about me dating Corinne, then that's even worse"—her eyes briefly darted towards the stubbornly purple hickey marking the side of my neck, which I couldn't hide while wearing my hair up during practice—"because it really is none of her business what I do with my personal life and if she's holding that against me out of spite, then she'll just be hurting the entire team. No offense to everyone else, but I'm one of your best jammers and—"